Old and new fire lookout towers, Depot Mountain, ca. 1920

In 1904, Elmer Crowley, a recent forestry graduate of the University of Maine who worked for M.G. Shaw Lumber Company, was on top of Big Squaw Mountain when he suggested it would be a good idea to put a fire watchman on top of the mountain.

A year later, M.G. Shaw Lumber built a fire lookout tower on the mountain, the first continuously operated forest fire lookout tower in the country.

At left is a view of the new, 63-foot steel tower on Depot Mountain in Aroostook County and the old platform and spruce tree tower.

The Depot Mountain tower, at 1,300 feet, closed in 1973.

Clyde Fox of St. Pamphile, Province of Quebec, was the watchman in 1917. Grover Bradford of Sebec was the chief warden.

Fire watchtower, Black Cat Mountain, 1920

The towers were equipped with alidades, a sighting apparatus that utilized hand-drawn maps of the geographic features of the area to help the watchers pinpoint the location of fires or smoke they spotted.

Early watchmen also had low-powered binoculars -- and a 360-degree view.

It was the watchmen's knowledge of the area, however, that was the greatest boon to determining the location of fires.

At left is the Black Cat Mountain tower in Piscataquis County. The 60-foot steel tower was built in 1919 at an elevation of 2,599 feet.

Fire watchman camp, Tumbledown, 1915

In addition, watchmen often had small gardens to provide fresh vegetables to their summer diets.

They cooked, sewed, cut wood for fuel, and protected their camps and food from bears, deer, and other animals.

The watchman in 1915 wrote on the back of the photo, calling the camp a "fine little camp."

He noted it had good beds, a cook stove, good dishes and a spring nearby. He also cited its distance from Skinner, Eustis (2 miles), Blakeslee (5 miles), Spence Depot Camp ( 1 1/2 miles) and 1 mile from the Tumbledown tower.